WARWICK, RI (AP) — One dull silver coin at a time, the soil provides new evidence that one of the world’s most ruthless pirates roamed the American colonies with impunity in the late 1700s.
Newly unearthed documents also confirm the case that English buccaneer Henry Every – the target of the first global manhunt – hid in New England before sailing to Ireland and vanishing into the wind.
“At this point, the amount of evidence is overwhelming and indisputable,” historian and metal detectorist Jim Bailey, who spent years trying to solve the mystery, told The Associated Press. “Everyone was undoubtedly on the run in the colonies.”
In 2014, after unearthing an unusual coin inscribed with an Arabic inscription in a pick-your-own fruit orchard in Middletown, Rhode Island, Bailey began following Every’s steps.
Research confirmed that the exotic coin was minted in Yemen in 1693. Bailey then discovered that it was consistent with millions of dollars worth of coins and other valuables seized by Every and his men during their brutal looting on September 7, 1695 of the Ganj-i-Sawai, an armed royal ship owned by the Indian Emperor Aurangzeb.
Historical accounts say Every’s band tortured and killed passengers aboard the Indian ship and raped many of the women before escaping to the Bahamas, a haven for pirates. But word quickly spread of their crimes, and England’s King William III – under enormous pressure from a shocked India and the influential trading giant of the East India Company – placed a large bounty on their heads.
Detectorists and archaeologists have since found 26 similar coins stretching from Maine to the Carolinas. All but three coins have turned up in New England, and none can be dated later than when the Indian ship was captured.
“When I first heard about it, I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this can’t be true,'” said Steve Album, a rare coin specialist in Santa Rosa, California, who helped identify all of the silver Arabian coins. that were found. in New England.
“But these coins are legitimate and have been found archaeologically in a few cases, and they all predate the looting of the ship,” said Album, who has lived in Iran and traveled extensively in the Middle East.
Detectorists also unearthed a gold nugget weighing 3 grams (one-tenth of an ounce) — slightly heavier than a U.S. penny — from a hilltop potato field in coastal Little Compton, Rhode Island.
There is no documented evidence that naturally occurring gold has ever been found in the state. Bailey and other experts believe the nugget probably originated somewhere along Africa’s Gold Coast, a center for the slave trade in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Adding to the intrigue, two silver Arab coins were recovered not far from the gold nugget, and Every is known to have seized a significant amount of gold while sailing off the coast of West Africa.
The final piece of evidence Every puts on American soil is not just metal, but paper and pixels.
Bailey had already found records showing that the Sea Flower, a ship used by Every and his men after they had floated the ship they had used in their murderous robbery, arrived in Newport, Rhode Island in 1696 . He has since unearthed documents showing the pirate captain was accompanied by three Rhode Islanders he had taken aboard another pirate ship as he fled India. All three made landfall in the Bahamas with Every on March 30, 1696, and Bailey said they essentially served as escape drivers in exchange for plunder.
Captured pirates William Phillips and Edward Savill testified on August 27, 1696 that one of the two ships leaving the Bahamas went to Virginia and New England before reaching Ireland. According to Bailey, the data clarifies a muddy timeline that has long been misinterpreted by historians to suggest that Every spent two months on the Caribbean island — something he would never have done as a fugitive.
“There’s no way he could have stayed in the Bahamas to sit on the beach and work on his tan while waiting to be captured,” Bailey said. “Indeed, Every was in New England for more than a month weighing his options to start his life over in the colonies or return to England.”
Every’s exploits inspired Steven Johnson’s book “Enemy of All Mankind” and the final installment of PlayStation’s popular video game franchise “Uncharted”. Earlier this year, Sony Pictures released a film adaptation starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas.
Bailey’s next challenge: finding out what happened to Every after the track went cold after his arrival in Ireland on June 20, 1696.
“We are hunting the lost history behind one of the greatest crimes of the 17th century,” he said.
